Polish plane crash victims' bodies may be exhumed

The bodies of Poland's late president, his wife and those who died along with them in a plane crash may be exhumed because of fears the remains may have been mixed up.

A lawyer representing families of some of the victims of the April 10 disaster, which claimed 96 lives when President Lech Kaczynski's plane crashed in Russia, said he has information showing that the Russian autopsy reports were so muddled that it is probable that parts of different people may have been buried in different graves.

Rafal Rogalski said Polish prosecutors did not have comprehensive autopsy photographs, and that some of the numbering of human remains and documents was inaccurate, and in one case the eye colour of a victim is recorded incorrectly.

Doubts over just who is buried where have raised the prospect of exhuming the bodies, and Mr Rogalski said he has already received one exhumation request.

The apparently inadequate autopsy documents, the lawyer explained, cast doubt as to whether the graves of President Kaczynski and his wife Maria contain their actual bodies....